The fractal nature of visual organization of socio-cultural space in Ukrainian cities during the Revolution of Dignity and external aggression (2013–2016) is analyzed. National symbols (the State Coat of Arms and the Flag, traditional folk embroidery) are considered as socio-cultural patterns that permeate all levels of the system organization. These socio-cultural fractals, i.e. self-similar objects, in which a part contains information about a whole object, are the features of powerful processes of social system self-organization.

1. Revolution of Dignity
in Ukraine:
Visual Fractals
of National Self-
organization

2. Dr. Olena Semenets
Professor,
Chair of the Department
of Social Communications
Zaporizhzhya National
University,
Ukraine

3. Main Points of the Investigation:
1. Ukraine in 2013–2016. Revolutionary and
combating country.
2. Visual communications in a modern city:
interdisciplinary approach.
3. Fractals and Self-organization.
4. Visual fractals of patriotic self-organization in
modern Ukrainian society.

4. Maidan.
The Revolution of Dignity
(November 2013 – February
2014)

5. Maidan created a new reality
in Ukraine

6. - the new social time

7. - and the new
social space

8. Two specific features of the research:
1. The analysis of Visual Communications
2. The use of the Theory of Complex Dynamic Systems
(Synergetics)
Its main concepts:
• complexity
• non-linearity
• non-equilibrium
• chaos and order
• attractors (trends) of evolution
• fractals
• self-organization

9. Synergetics studies systems of different character.
It aims at discovering fundamental regularities,
fundamental patterns which are common for complex
systems:
• in the world of animate and inanimate nature,
• in the Universe as a whole,
• in human society,
• in the sphere of human mind and creative work.
The notions of fractals and self-organization are worth of
special attention.

10. Fractal is a self-similar object:
 a part contains information about a whole object;
 a repeating pattern displays at every scale.
(Fractal – from Latin, it means ‘fractional, broken’. The term was
coined by the French mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot in the
mid-1970s.)
Types of fractals:
1) self-similar pattern;
2) quasi-self-similarity;
3) stochastic self-similarity – randomly generated fractal
(a statistical fractal, it depends on measurement).

11. 1) Self-similar
pattern:
the replication is
exactly the same
at every scale.
Example:
the Koch curve
(the Koch
snowflake).
described in 1904
by the Swedish
mathematician Helge
von Koch).

12. 2) Quasi-self-similarity: the replication is nearly the
same at different levels. It may contain small copies of
entire fractal in distorted and degenerated forms.
Example: the Mandelbrot set .

13. 3) Stochastic self-similarity: it repeats a pattern stochastically (a randomly
generated fractal). A statistical fractal (depends on measurement).
The well-known example: the coastline of Britain.
‘How Long Is the Coast of
Britain? Statistical Self-
Similarity and Fractional
Dimension’
(the paper by Benoit
Mandelbrot, first published in
‘Science’
in 1967).
Measures:
 200 km;
 50 km – more exact, more
precise.

14. Fractals exist in the nature (animate, inanimate) and
in the human society as well.
Natural fractals, for example, are
 ocean waves, coastlines, shapes of clouds, mountain
ranges (inanimate nature);
 crowns of trees, starfishes and seashells, animal coloration
patterns, vegetables, flowers and fruits (animate nature);
 respiratory system (‘respiratory tree’), blood vessels, DNA
molecules.

15. Natural phenomena with fractal features: - inanimate nature

17. - animate nature

20. Fractal structure also manifests in social phenomena,
in material and ideal outcomes of human creativity:
political and state symbols, ethnical stereotypes and so
on.
Fractal principle is one of the most
fundamental regularities in the Universe.
For instance, a surprising similarity appears between
 the patterns of neuronal connections in human brain (the left image)
 and the structure of the Universe (the right image – computer simulation
represents a large cluster of galaxies surrounded by the network of
stars and dark matter).
The similarity of the structures is observed in the scale:
from microns – to billions of light years.

21. http://www.heartcom.org/10-D.htm

22. Now fractal graphic images can be generated according to mathematical
formulas using special software.
Examples: Fractals created using Apophysis computer program and other similar
software.

23. Fractals generated using software.
Of particular interest are the fractal structure with a distinct core and a periphery (as
on these images). Such fractal patterns vividly demonstrate the dynamics of
system development.

24. Features of a fractal structure:
 self-similarity (a part is similar to a whole system);
 scale invariants (the same pattern is repeated at all
levels of system organization);
 potential for developing, continuing structure (the
cores, the centers of fractal organizations can ‘unfold’
themselves and continue their structure at different
levels of a system).
Fractal structure Self-organization

25. Applying the Theory of Fractals in studying
Social Communications, in particular
visual communications in modern Ukrainian cities
A special role in organizing visual discourse during the
Revolution of Dignity was performed by national and
state symbols:
 the State Flag of Ukraine
 the State Coat of Arms (the Ukrainian Tryzub)
 traditional folk embroidery (the Ukrainian
Vyshyvanka).

26. National and State Symbols of Ukraine

27. Ukrainian Vyshyvanka

28. Violent events of the Revolution of Dignity, civil conflicts in the
Eastern Ukraine and external aggression (2013–2016) had an
effect of fundamental changes in human consciousness.
Ukrainians had confidently and powerfully felt themselves as
the nation. They had understood common aims, their unity and
determination to act together.
Bright changes had occurred at the same time in the
organization of visual space of Ukrainian cities and villages.
Strong yellow and blue wave rose over the whole country, and
that wave was gaining expressiveness and power from day to
day.
National visual symbols penetrated all social and cultural
space;
they found more and more new areas of realization. They
enriched those areas with a particular excited content and
absorbed the memory of the people’s new historical experience.

31. People’s creativity was looking for ways of embodiment of the national patriotic content.
Example: the luxury Golf Club in the city of Zaporizhzhya circled with a yellow-blue
ribbon the territory of his restaurant in April 2014. “Ribbons are our talisman, – says the
master. – After we hung flags and tapes, good people nearby became more.”

33. It is significant a huge range of fractal replication:
from a gate of a private yard –
– to patriotic colors of Obolon’ embankment in Kiev
(1750 sq. meters), which took more than 500 kg of
paint.

35. Especially grand events occurred on Constitution Day
(June 28) in 2014.
In the evening the Motherland monument in Kiev ‘got
dressed’ in yellow and blue attire. Because of two
powerful spotlights painted 100 meter high statue into
the colors of the national Flag.
And on the shield in her hand the Emblem of Ukraine –
Trident – there was designed by spotlights.

37. In the city of Dnipropetrovs’k a huge flaming Coat of
Arms appeared on the unfinished hotel ‘Sail’.
80 volunteers lighted from the windows of building the
Ukrainian Coat of Arms first with flashlights and then
with torches. The immense Trident covered overall
15 floors high.
In such way activists honored the memory of heroes
died on Maidan (‘Heavenly Hundred’) and of those
people that were killed during the military operation in
Eastern Ukraine.

39. Fractal objects have a feature of scale invariance. Hence, there are inexhaustible
opportunities to folk art, to implantation of important meanings on different levels, in
different spheres, in more and more new contexts.
For example, in everyday life, in women’s adornment, in outdoor advertising, etc.

40. Different types of fractals:
1) self-similar pattern (exact
reproductions of the object at different scales)
proportion 2:3
(width to length)
of the blue and
yellow bicolour

41. 2) quasi-self-
similarity (some
variations of the
established
proportion)

42. 3) stochastic fractals
(parameters vary under the
circumstances).
The main conceptual content gets
creative, innovative design in
them.

43. Traditional folk embroidery (the Ukrainian Vyshyvanka)
Vyshyvanka is the Ukrainian traditional clothing
which contains elements of ethnic embroidery.
Ukrainian folk embroidery is the core of traditional
folk symbolism, embodied memory of millennia.
During those memorable events it has gained the
vast spread in streets of towns and villages (in
different cities of Ukraine there were ‘Marches of
Embroidery’).

45. Along with all those events, the embroidery became
an exponent of the new revolutionary implications.
Moreover, the embroidery moved beyond the merely
national discourse and – as a symbol of
determination in the liberation struggle – it acquired
the status of the world trend.

47. Hollywood Stars: ‘Parade of Embroidered Shirts’

48. ‘Car embroidery’ in Ukraine
(patriotic cars tuning)

49. Collection of bagged sugar ‘The Ukrainian
Embroidery’

50. Collection of bagged sugar ‘The Ukrainian
Embroidery’

51. Fractals are manifestation of unity and integrity of the
system because the basic idea is reiterated at all levels
of the organization.
Strong symbolic relationship permeates all subsystems
of the society (individual – family – social groups – the
whole society)
and all spheres of activity (everyday life – professional
area – culture – social and political spheres).
All those processes occur spontaneously. Those
phenomena do not arise under the pressure. On the
contrary, the innovations rise from the deep layers of the
system upwards. This is a true manifestation of the
society’s self-organization.

52. Medical Center ‘Global
Diagnostic’ in Zaporizhzhya.
Slogan:
‘Ukraine is indivisible!’

53. Social network “ВКонтакте”. The group ‘The Flag of Ukraine for
everyone’

54. All this visual patriotic discourse, with its fractal structure, was a
powerful surge of creating the nation, especially in spring – summer
2014.
However, moods in a society, dominants of a public opinion are
substances variable. Accordingly, there is a certain dynamics in a
visual organization of urban space as their reflection.
After a while, some feelings of frustration and disappointment
appeared in the community. It was caused by people’s terrible
tiredness, by horrors of the war, by many months of psychical
tension, and by the lack of real reforms in the country and the
notorious corruption.
Pain of enormous human losses in the war.
Mutilated bodies of badly wounded people.
Incurable wounds in souls of those who have survived in the war.

55. Moods in a society, especially their emotional components, is a
very dynamic thing. Nevertheless, social sentiments in their
changes subject to certain laws:
• ‘rhythms of civilizations’ (Lev Gumilyov)
• ‘waves’ of a social development (Alvin Toffler)
• and other concepts.
The dynamics of current events in the Ukrainian society is also
subject to those ‘wave’ patterns. Under such rhythms, after a
while, public energy reduces the level and accumulates potential
for a next rise.
Over time, a new visuality appeared on streets, squares and
public gardens in Ukrainian cities and villages:

56. - portraits of the ‘Heavenly Hundred’

57. - portraits of the heroes killed in battles in Eastern Ukraine

58. The Ukrainians…
...on their own land.

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61. THANK YOU!